Friday, January 16, 2015

VOODOO DANCE DOLL: 1950s/60s Rock'n'Roll Exotica

Bongos in the Congo! Apes in the jungle! Tikis, cannibals, and witch doctors! Grown men making tropical bird calls! Sound familiar? But this ain't no jazzy Martin Denny-style exotica for grown-ups' cocktail parties. No, my teen-age hoodlum friends, this sampler of exotic rock (rock-xotica?) + relevant soundbites marks this blogs' return to weekend-starting sleazy-listening sounds from the Golden Age of Cool. As with the first collection that kicked off this on-again/off-again project, many of these tracks were recorded off my vinyl, songs that hopefully have not been featured on similar comps like the "Jungle Exotica" series. My records are in various states of preservation, so I did track down some digital replacements when available. But most of this is out-of-print wax whose occasional pops and cracks can be thought of as the crunching of jungle undergrowth beneath the furious feet of Watusi exotic dancers (in all senses of the phrase).Ingredients: surf rock, doo-wop, rhythm 'n' blues, novelties, some actual ethnic peoples, movie clips, radio ads, excerpts from a record meant to accompany a slideshow or filmstrip about the Congo, Africa (unfortunately, it did not contain the visuals), and some loungey things, but with a backbeat. There are a few well-known hit-makers here like Eartha Kitt, the Dave Clark Five, and Santo & Johnny, but as these records are from the gloriously unself-conscious pre-rock critic era*, many of these artists have been lost to the mists of history. Voodoo Dance Doll - an M4M Collection.zip01 congo slideshow- weekend dance02 Mel Taylor & The Magics - Bongo Rock03 The Vistas - Tiki Twist04 Leni Okehu and his Surfboarders - Hawaiian People Eater05 Eartha Kitt - Honolulu Rock And Roll06 congo slideshow - superstition dance07 Muvva Hubbard & the Stompers Congo Mombo08 "Alligator Man"09 The Dave Clark Five - Chaquita10 The Pyramids - Koko Joe11 "100 Percent Gorilla"12 The Rocking Vickers - I Go Ape13 Billy Mure - Tabu14 congo slideshow - witch doctor15 Werner Hass - Oh-ee-oh-ah-ah16 Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Jungle Fever17 Jerry & Mel - Cannibal stew18 "Zombie Island Massacre" - Zombie Attacks Honeymooners19 congo slideshow - drumming20 Mel Taylor & The Magics - Drums A Go-Go21 Thurl Ravenscroft - Dr Geek From Tanganyika22 Buddy Morrow And His Orchestra - One-Two-Three-Kick (The Original Conga) pt1.23 Roger Craig - Song of India24 The Fugitives - Human Jungle25 Bela's "Jungle Hell"26 Roy Estrada and The Rocketeers-Jungle Dreams Part 2 27 Busby Lewis - Jerk28 Susan King-Drum Rhythm29 Yngve stoor - Hula Rock30 Perez Prado - Cuban Rock31 Leni Okehu and his Surfboarders - Hawaiian Rock32 Freddy Cannon - Everybody Monkey33 Johnny and Santo - Caravan34 congo slideshow - watusi35 Big Walter and the Thunderbirds _ Watusie Freeze part 136 "shrunken heads" ad37 Buddy Morrow And His Orchestra - One-Two-Three-Kick (The Original Conga) pt238 Marti Barris - Ahbe Casabe39 Sandy Nelson - Casbah Thanks to Count Otto for the Rockin' Vicars!*Cartoonist/record collector Robert Crumb has described the early rock he really liked as "proletariat," and indeed, there may be some class-ism behind the critical dismissal of so much rock prior to the mid-'60s: once rock scrubbed off all of that honky-tonk/ghetto stank and adopted such middle-class, college-educated features as "poetic" lyrics and classical European influences, then it finally merited the status of High Art. But of course, the music wasn't really improved so much as it simply changed - from fun, funny, energetic, sexy, and atmospheric to...not as much. Rock didn't get better, it just moved to the suburbs.